Men's Cross Country Team Dominates New England Championships

Aug 26, 2008

Oct. 7, 2007

Boston, MA -
Led by sophomore Christian Escareno's (Mount Prospect, IL) third place finish, the Brown men's cross country team placed first at the New England Championships at Van Cortlandt Park with 95 points on Saturday.

The Bears quickly adapted to the hot and humid temperatures yesterday and went out and accomplished their goal, beating many other talented varsity programs including Boston College and Boston University. Escareno who was the top sophomore in the race, posted a 24:54 for third place. Winning the race was BC's Patrick Mellea, an individual NCAA qualifier last year. In second was another Boston College runner, Timothy Ritchie.

Senior Ryan Graddy (Del Mar, CA) came in eighth place with a 25:24, followed by senior Ari Zamir (Ridgewood, NJ) in 16th with a 25:37. Junior Steven Chanoler (Merrimack, NH) was the squads fourth runner (20th) and senior Nick Sarro (Chatham, NY) rounded out the Bears' top five.

Freshman Sam Sheehan (Woodland, ME) won the sub-varsity race with a time of 25:45, which would have put him as Brown's fourth runner in the varsity race. Sheehan's time in Saturday's race was 45 seconds faster than his personal best on the course a few weeks ago.

Also showing improvement and stepping up in a huge way for the Bears was sophomore Colin Brett (Easton, PA) , who beat his personal best by 50 seconds. Sophomore John Loeser (Weston, CT) and freshman John Haenle (Lockport, NY) both nearly beat their previous times by 40 seconds.

Placing after Brown (95 points), was UMass/Lowell with a 123, 3rd was UMass/Amherst with a 124, Boston College (132), Williams (166), sixth was Stonehill (235) and in seventh was New Hampshire with a 252.